On a recent morning in the living room of the North Druid Hills home he’s lived in for the past 30 years, Tinsley Ellis’ charming humility is on display. His unassuming demeanor belies the fact that his generations-spanning music has been lauded by The New York Times and Billboard.
“I don’t have a very glamorous career, but it’s mine,” Ellis said. “I get to write all my own songs, and now I do acoustic music, which is something I always wanted to do.”
The legendary Atlanta blues musician has released about 20 albums since the 1980s, including “Labor of Love,” which was released this week. It’s his first acoustic album with original material.
Tonight, he has a show at Eddie’s Attic, and another in Athens on Saturday, before touring across the country through the spring. But underneath the accolades and longevity lies the inspiring humility of a man, who has a propensity for creative reinvention.
“I don’t know what else I would do right (at) the age of 68.″
A blues passion with a rock & roll heritage
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Ellis was born at Atlanta’s Piedmont Hospital and raised in South Florida. He returned to Atlanta to study history at Emory University, although he’s always known that music was his calling.
As a child, he was infatuated with 1960s rock acts like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds.
“It wasn’t until years later I realized they were playing American music by Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf and Chuck Berry … a friend of mine’s older brother said, ‘Well, if you like Eric Clapton, you need to go see B.B. King because that’s where he got it from,” Ellis said. “So I went to see B.B. King. And then that was it. That was the keys to the kingdom. I was 14 or 15 years old. I was the annoying kid that would sit in the very front row.”
After college, he played in blues-rock bands and was signed by influential Chicago-based independent blues label Alligator Records in the 1980s. He released his major-label debut album “Georgia Blue” in 1988.
Shortly after his signing, Ellis played backup guitar for shows of blues greats Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Albert Collins and Koko Taylor in Chicago.
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
“I think at first they saw me as somewhat of a novelty — a hippie guy coming from the Deep South. I found that as long as I didn’t try to dominate the conversation, either offstage or on stage, that I can fit right in. I feel very fortunate to have been around at the time, and now pretty much all those people are gone, except Buddy Guy.”
Ellis understands his privilege as a white man in blues, being the first to say, “I don’t claim to be a Buddy Guy. I’m a rock and roller who loves blues, and that takes me out of the whole argument.”
Bruce Iglauer, president and founder of Alligator Records, echoes Ellis’ keen appreciation of the blues, a genre that originated as a source of escape for Black people in the late 19th century. Iglauer remembers traveling to Atlanta in the 1980s at the suggestion of a friend to watch Ellis perform in Little Five Points. Enamored by Ellis’ maturity as a musician, Iglauer knew he needed to sign him.
“There are a lot of hot young blues rockers, but most of them don’t understand they’re the right notes to play and just tend to fill up a lot of space with a lot of fast playing,” Iglauer recalled. “When I went to see him live, and when I heard it on records, I noticed how carefully he chose what to play in and also what to leave out. In the same way, his vocals told the story with passion, but they weren’t histrionic. They weren’t overdramatic.”
“Labor of Love” exemplifies that style. Ellis began working on it roughly a year ago. It’s his first acoustic LP featuring all original music. 2024’s “Naked Truth” was his first acoustic album.
Technically, Ellis played acoustically first, with his parents renting him an acoustic guitar when he was 7. He begged his mom for it after watching the Beatles on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Ellis likes how the acoustic style creates a warm atmosphere and an intimacy with the audience during live shows.
“When I play electrically, I do five or six electric songs, and then bring out a stool and do two or three acoustic songs in the middle of the show, and then finish the show electrically. I found myself just longing for that (acoustic) part of the show. Not that I didn’t like the electric part, but I found that it was just a real good feeling to have the guitar sounding more beautiful as opposed to menacing.”
In turn, “Labor of Love,” sounds just like its namesake, weaving an admiration for both the sacred and secular. There are songs like “Lay My Burden Down” and lead single “Hoodoo Woman,” inspired by the Black church and spiritual traditions that the blues are rooted in.
“The older I get, the more I realize that everything boils down to how people treat each other … I can cook up some monstrous resentments and some worst-case scenarios, but then I find that if I think about others that can experience that abandonment of self, and I think that’s one of the things that music will do, too. It helps you abandon self, and that’s about as religious as I get.”
“Fountain of Love,” one of the album’s closing tracks, centers the need for more love, even as a form of escapism. The standout song shines for Ellis’ high-pitched voice, as delicate and soothing as a salve.
“I wrote that in real time,” said Ellis, who also played the mandolin and piano on the album. “I sang the song without having written any lyrics down. It’s a slow enough song to where I could think of what the next line would be.”
A ‘labor of love’
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
Credit: Miguel Martinez-Jimenez
The title of Ellis’ new album aligns with his blues journey.
“Well, anything involving the arts is probably going to be more of a labor,” Ellis noted. “You do it because you love it, because there were so many times when I should have just stopped being a musician and gotten a job.”
One such time? The COVID-19 pandemic.
As a touring artist, Ellis felt defeated during that period, so he “threw myself into songwriting,” mainly for his own creative practice, which peaks in the morning.
“I was so afraid that I would lose my chops, my playing skills, and a friend of mine said, ‘Why don’t you designate three hours a day towards recording?’ I would do like from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., five or six days a week, and I made a discipline of it.”
He arranged recording files by electric, acoustic, traditional blues, folk and an “oddballs” file for miscellaneous items.
“That’s kind of what ‘Labor of Love’ was .... that’s my process, and I think I’ll do that up to the end of my life.”
Iglauer said that process, along with Ellis forming a following the “old-fashioned way, gig-by-gig,” punctuates his honest approach to playing the blues.
“His acoustic performances are like sitting with him in his living room … it’s very intimate, and it’s very personal and he’s often very funny,” Iglauer said.
Four decades into his career, Ellis still feels inspired by Atlanta’s blues scene. He cites Atlanta as the city “where the blues got its soul,” naming artists like James Brown and Ray Charles.
He notes that the scene remains healthy, with venues like Blind Willie’s, Northside Tavern (“the only place I know in America where college kids are digging on blues”) and Fat Matt’s Rib Shack. He’s a fan of LaGrange artist Jontavious Willis (the “greatest young blues musician alive”) and Atlanta’s Eddie 9V.
At the brink of 70, Ellis plans to continue to be part of the rich local scene.
“I still feel like that college kid that’s sitting there at the feet of Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters.”
IF YOU GO
Tinsley Ellis Labor of Love Tour
Friday. 7 p.m. Sold out. $46.17. Eddie’s Attic, 515 N. McDonough St, Decatur. 404-377-4976, eddiesattic.com
Saturday. 8 p.m. $25.25. The Rialto Club at Hotel Indigo. 500 College Ave., Athens. 706-850-9184, indigoathens.com
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